Surprisingly Few New Parents Enlist in Study to Have Baby’s Genome Sequenced

October 21, 2016

(Science) – When Robert Green, a geneticist at the Harvard University–affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and co-workers began planning to sequence babies about 4 years ago, they surveyed more than 500 parents of healthy newborns. Nearly half declared they would be “very” or “extremely” interested and another 37% said “somewhat.” But since their actual BabySeq Project began last year in May, only about 7% of more than 2400 couples approached so far have agreed to participate, says Green, who co-leads BabySeq with Alan Beggs of Boston Children’s Hospital. That “very surprising” figure is the same both for parents of very sick infants and those with healthy babies, he adds.

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